First Steps

Jack spent another day in the hospital with the doctors running checks on him as it wasn't everyday a person got struck by lightning and survived. Though they wanted to keep him in the hospital longer to ensure that he was completely healthy, he insisted that he was perfectly fine and as the doctors could see no other reason to keep him in, they simply let him go after settling the hospital bill.

"Freedom at last! Lord knows how boring it was there" with an exaggerated sigh he stepped out of the hospital, his previous clothes in hand as he wanted to continue his experiments. There was a new bounce to his steps as he was sure that whatever this was it would be good. "Come on son it wasn't that bad" his mother hitting him on the arm as she chuckled at her son's behaviour. "Mom you don't understand how it feels to simply sit there for hours on end with people probing you with sticks and running scans and I hope you never do!" He carried on his exaggerated rant as with his mother he could let out his somewhat childish side.

She simply found it humorous as they hailed a taxi "so what are you going to do now? You need to rest after that ordeal" Barbara asked as she watched the shops and houses go by "I want to check up on the garage, see how things are since its been 3 days since I've been there". This caused Barbara to sigh "son Tabo has been watching over the garage while you've been gone, he's been doing a good job from what I've seen so you don't have to worry about that" "I know mum, but its also to show the others that I'm alright"

As they returned to his mother's house, they had their lunch as breakfast had already passed in the hospital, after that he walked to his garage and as soon as he stepped close to the entrance some of the employees noticed him "Boss!! It's good to see that you're alright, they finally let you out" Koffee a young 19 year girl with braces and box braids shouted from the side as she ran up to him, she was one of the mechanics that worked there and she was good at what she did. "Yeah it's good to be out, was getting stifled simply being cooped up in there" Jack let out a smile as he looked at his workshop, everything was working smoothly and there was nothing much for him to do. "Boss there's something I want to show you, I've been working on this engine and I think I can improve the efficiency by at least 5%, it'll definitely sell.." as she was about to continue he had to interrupt her "Koffee I just came out of the hospital, maybe later ok" he let out a chuckle as he knew what she was like.

"Ok boss, I'll bring it up later" and after that she went back to the car she was working on, she was a young girl he found when he was exploring the city, she didn't really talk much about her home life but he saw her working on some spare parts he was impressed. He offered to teach her how to fix things bigger than what she was doing currently and she immediately snatched up the offer. The others working with him all have similar stories to her, that's why they were all close like an extended family.

After ensuring that everything was working in order, he went into his office and as he sat down he looked at the burnt clothes he wore during the incident.

~ Burnt t-shirt

Sell: $0.50

Recycle: Acid, benzene-1,4-dicarboxylic acid (terephthalic acid); alcohol ethane-1,2-diol.

When he was the options for recycling, he was surprised but when he searched for what the shirt was made from, he discovered that those were the exact elements used in creating his t-shirt, he chose to recycle and as per the previous experience, it showed up on different boxes.

As any garage there will always be spare parts and discarded junk everywhere, some they are unable to get rid of immediately, so they end up forgotten for months at times. He asked some of employees to gather some of the junk they had to a separate room at the back. As he was about to start the process a box popped up.

~ Would you like to install a black pool?

Y/N

This had him confused, unconsciously he asked, "what's a black pool?"

~ A black pool is a function that acts as a permanent recycling plant, installed in a set location. All recycled materials are automatically deposited into your inventory. It appears as its name suggest a black pool. This option can also be converted to auto sell all deposited items once unlocked.

Current options: 4 X 6m

~ Would you like to install a black pool?

Y/N

He looked around and found a section of the room that'll fit the pool, as he pressed Y black lines appeared on the floor slowly connecting to each other, horizontal lines meeting the ends of vertical lines until they eventually filled the space of 4 X 6m with black boxes. Afterwards, the boxes started getting filled with a black liquid substance until the entire section of the floor was completely black, it looked like it devoured light itself.

He grabbed a random piece of metal and read its information.

~ Exhaust Tubing:

Sell: $13

Recycle: 2.5g Titanium, Lithium 0.7g..

It listed off the elements and he simply threw it into the black pool, there was no ripple as the metal simply vanished. He looked at his inventory and there were new additions to the elements there, this got him excited, he tried taking out the Titanium and it came out in the shape of a box, there was a scale close by and as soon as he placed it, it measured at 2.5g. Looking at the Titanium itself it looked like the purest metal he's ever seen in his life, there was a shit-eating grin on his face. "Set to sell option" he considered all the money he could make and was about to start throwing things into the pol.

~ This setting is unavailable at the moment.

This caused him to pause, after a few seconds he could only sigh "well at least I can sell the metals I'll get from this" so he started throwing the pieces of scrap into the pool, keeping his focus on his inventory as the elements and their quantity gradually increased.